Downtown Development: The Latest Info on 106 Downtown Projects

DTLA – Maybe it’s the turbo-charged national economy. Maybe it’s the Los Angeles housing shortage that has caused both rents and home sale prices to spike. Maybe it’s the pressure developers face of trying to launch a project before voters cast ballots on Measure S in March. Maybe it’s all of the above.

Whatever the case, the Downtown Los Angeles development scene is busier than ever, and has surpassed pre-recession peaks. Everywhere you look in the Central City, there are cranes and construction workers (not to mention closed streets and sidewalks) building new high-rises and landmarks.

In the last five months, developers have announced more than a dozen projects, from a reimagining of the Southern California Flower Market, complete with a residential tower, to the Olympia, a three-pronged South Park high-rise that would create more than 1,300 apartments. These occur as other long-awaited developments near the finish line: In the coming months, projects including the Wilshire Grand replacement and Los Angeles State Historic Park are scheduled to open.

In the following pages, Los Angeles Downtown News provides the latest information on 106 projects. From Chinatown to South Park, from City West to the Arts District, housing, retail and office efforts are underway.

We have altered our Development format in the effort to make it easier to track individual projects. We think it’s a better look. We hope you agree.

NEW PROJECTS

These projects were either publicly announced, were revived or gained prominence in the past five months.

TEN50

1050 S. Grand Ave

Developer: Trumark Urban

Budget: $125 million

Height: 25 stories

Residences: 151 one- and two-bedroom condos and six one- and two-story penthouses

Anticipated Opening: This month

Website: ten50.la

The Latest: The South Park condominium complex, designed by Hanson-L.A., is ready for move-ins. The project is more than 60% sold, with residences starting in the $600,000s.

Curbed San Francisco: “Check out the Pacific’s Virtual Reality Penthouses”

And yet, the building is technically incomplete: Several of the penthouses are still mere shells, waiting for buyers to snap them up and create their own space.

This is routine for high-end buildings, but it poses a challenge for anyone trying to sell an empty slot. Even the best salesperson can only talk about unparalleled views for so long.

But now it’s Silicon Valley to the rescue. Last week, the Pacific lured potential buyers up to the penthouse level in part to strap on Oculus headsets and take a 360-plus degree peek at virtual renderings of how the space could one day look.

How the penthouses look today.

Erik Altman, the managing director at Steelblue, the noted renderings service who designed the digital penthouse tour, tells Curbed SF that people have been doing this kind of thing for over a decade now. But the recent leaps in tech and renewed public interest in VR as a concept has increased demand.

“We’re creating a spherical representation of a space that surrounds the viewers,” says Altman. “There’s nothing with cords attached to it anymore, and every year these tech companies are putting out better technology.”

Peering around the Pacific’s unbuilt penthouse space, via advanced technology, can be an odd experience: Some users get a bit dizzy, while others may grow anxious at not being able to see the real world around them.

But it certainly provides a more interesting condo hunting experience than looking around an unfinished space and hearing about potential.

How they look via Oculus.SteelBlue

Users move from room to room by directing their eyes to certain icons—physically moving in the real world is not recommended, and doesn’t do anything anyway in terms of visual difference.

Similar virtual perspective tours are common on house listings these days, but the degree of detail—and how nice it plays with a headset—varies.

Altman says that the Pacific was the company’s largest virtual condo space yet. “A rendering has one point of view and you can place lighting and furniture wherever you like,” he says.

Altman adds: “With a big open floor plan like this and no walls, if you turn around you have to make sure the light is hitting the same place in the room always, that it reflects the right way off of different materials, everything.”

The virtual condos are a big investment—Altman didn’t want to say how much such a job typically costs, but a spokesperson for the Pacific put it succinctly, saying: “It’s not cheap.”

But unbuilt penthouses in this building sold last year for up to $11.75 million. So there’s certainly an incentive to invest.

Los Angeles Downtown News: “Ten50 Move-Ins Begin Feb. 13”

February 1, 2017

Ten50 Move-Ins Begin Feb. 13

Feb 1, 2017

DTLA – After years without any new product, the Downtown Los Angeles condominium scene is growing. Move-ins recently began at the Metropolis complex, and now South Park’s Ten50 is nearly ready to debut.

Built by San Francisco-based developer Trumark Urban, Ten50 will begin move-ins on Monday, Feb. 13, according to a company representative.

The building’s 151 units are more than 60% sold, with prices ranging from the $600,000s for the smallest one-bedroom residences (about 700 square feet) to $4.1 million for the duplex-style two-floor penthouses (3,500 square feet).

Amenities include a pool and spa, fitness studio and yoga deck, a screening room and more.

Real estate experts say Downtown is starved for new condos, but that could change in the near future with a wave of luxury units on the way; 1,372 condominiums are currently under construction, with 2,138 more approved and in the planning pipeline, according to a report from real estate analysis firm The Mark Company.